[HN Gopher] NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
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NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
Author : gnabgib
Score : 37 points
Date : 2024-07-18 21:24 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| hughes wrote:
| I'm all for avoiding sunk-cost thinking, but considering that
| nearly half a billion was spent on this thing and its launch was
| barely a year away, it's hard to wrap my head around scrapping it
| entirely.
|
| From the lost talent alone, this seems catastrophic - why would
| any of the country's best engineers want to work on ambitious
| NASA projects when they can be rug-pulled so close to completion?
|
| Also, where's the accountability or at least lessons learned in
| this cancelation? Is there a single finding on how to reduce cost
| overruns for future missions?
| dylan604 wrote:
| The Superconducting Super Collider was hoping to get to that
| "too far along to cancel" point as well. They thought that
| reaching 80% tunnel completion would do it. However it didn't,
| and it was canceled. I'm sure there's plenty of other examples
| as well.
| choilive wrote:
| Not entirely on NASA, Congress slashed their budget causing a
| -$500M hole, with future years budget not looking to fare much
| better so they had to make some tough decisions. Sounds like
| other missions in the same program are going to pick up VIPER's
| objectives though.
| bko wrote:
| Sure looks like they cut it 2% in 2024, but they've increased
| it every year over the last 10 years, even in real terms
| (maybe 2022/2023 was a bit under flat)
|
| Year Budget Change
|
| 2000 13,428
|
| 2001 14,095 4.97%
|
| 2002 14,405 2.20%
|
| 2003 14,610 1.42%
|
| 2004 15,152 3.71%
|
| 2005 15,602 2.97%
|
| 2006 15,125 -3.06%
|
| 2007 15,861 4.87%
|
| 2008 17,833 12.43%
|
| 2009 17,782 -0.29%
|
| 2010 18,724 5.30%
|
| 2011 18,448 -1.47%
|
| 2012 17,770 -3.68%
|
| 2013 16,865 -5.09%
|
| 2014 17,647 4.64%
|
| 2015 18,010 2.06%
|
| 2016 19,300 7.16%
|
| 2017 19,508 1.08%
|
| 2018 20,736 6.29%
|
| 2019 21,500 3.68%
|
| 2020 22,629 5.25%
|
| 2021 23,271 2.84%
|
| 2022 24,041 3.31%
|
| 2023 25,384 5.59%
|
| 2024 24,875 -2.01%
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA
| zamadatix wrote:
| In real terms that looks pretty flat for both the last 10
| years and since the beginning of the list. Doesn't explain
| the project cut but also isn't really real budget growth
| either.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| The problem is that most of that budget is earmarked for
| huge money-wasters like SLS, and those earmarks are
| growing. So the non-earmarked budget shrinks.
| bobmcnamara wrote:
| > From the lost talent alone, this seems catastrophic - why
| would any of the country's best engineers want to work on
| ambitious NASA projects when they can be rug-pulled so close to
| completion?
|
| That's the point! By making government dysfunctional we can
| point out all the wasted funds and slash the budget /Reagan
| omneity wrote:
| With the recently discovered caves in the moon[0] I always
| thought this particular mission had unfortunate timing since the
| caves are pretty far from the south pole. Maybe its cancelation
| is for the best after all.
|
| Huge sunk cost though, it might lower confidence in future budget
| talks.
|
| 0: https://www.space.com/moon-cave-lunar-exploration-radar-
| imag...
| dylan604 wrote:
| It could be a win-win. Just imagine if NASA canceled the
| Starliner before it launched. Boeing could have been saved the
| embarrassment they are currently enduring, but they weren't so
| lucky to have their project canceled.
| Alupis wrote:
| While NASA helped fund development and lend expertise,
| Starliner is not a NASA project to cancel. It's a Boeing/ULA
| project, and it's likely in Boeing/ULA's interest to develop
| manned space flight capabilities regardless of what NASA's
| needs might be today or in the near future.
| mxxx wrote:
| https://youtu.be/SAsgN_LPWBc?si=sRPm9YFXMr4lIcbt
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| 450M just for building the robot seems a bit steep; its not like
| they're actually getting it to the moon for that price. How much
| cheaper is it than just sending 3 dudes in a tin can to just dig
| the holes themselves?
|
| Edit: I guess NASA says manned missions will cost billions. Still
| seems like half a billion is a lot for a glorified DJI drone
| thats only gotta make it to the moon lol. Regardless, money spent
| towards any space project tends to be money well spent, so
| compared to all the other spending I'd like to complain about,
| this isn't even on the radar.
| esalman wrote:
| The risk of losing 3 dudes is greater than $450m.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| Risk avoidance has its place, but fear didn't get us to the
| moon the first time and I'm confident it wont work this time
| either.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| You're probably right in this specific example, or at least
| you're probably in-line with NASA's leadership's thinking.
|
| I am willing to bet that other parts of society (e.g. traffic
| planners and automobile manufacturers) have a much lower cost
| of human life.
| __s wrote:
| For NASA the cost of dead people includes bad PR
| rvnx wrote:
| Not really, SpaceX would just sell that as an unscheduled
| disassembly + "we collected data".
|
| It's widely accepted that you may die going to space in
| experimental vehicles, nobody ever said it would be safe,
| and nobody can reasonably think it is risk-free.
|
| Apollo 1 folks died, not a problem for reputation of
| NASA.
| doytch wrote:
| People put valuations on lives all the time in risk analysis
| and I've never seen a cost even close to $100m.
|
| DOT puts it at 13.2m: https://www.transportation.gov/office-
| policy/transportation-...
| rvnx wrote:
| Finding someone who agrees to go to the moon with a risk of
| 1 out 2 of dying, and 1 of 2 of becoming a historical hero
| is really doable.
|
| Plenty of volunteers, and no need for 100M USD.
|
| People go to war for less than 50K USD.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| The odds of dying in a war are less than 1 in 2, and for
| joining the military in general it is far far less.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Astronauts are _very_ visible deaths for politicians whose
| currency is points in the polls. Having your photo _not_
| show up on the news next to a photo of a dead square-jawed
| captain america astronaut is probably worth 100m of other
| peoples money.
| Rapzid wrote:
| They wouldn't be "astronauts". They'd be cargo.
| tjohns wrote:
| Factor in the PR impact on the entire space program given
| the public visibility.
|
| We've never had an astronaut crew get stranded on the moon.
| though we got close with Apollo 13. If/when that happens
| for the first time, you'd better believe the entire planet
| will be paying attention.
|
| Just the congressional inquiries _alone_ will set the space
| program back by decades.
| choilive wrote:
| Thats for the average person - whats the cost to replace
| the average astronaut? I've seen estimates that it costs
| $15M just to train 1 astronaut, and the pool of qualified
| candidates is likely extremely small. I would figure a
| guess of $100M per astronaut is not unreasonable.
| justinator wrote:
| If the documentary, "Armageddon" taught me anything, they'll do
| it if you just agree that they never have to pay taxes again,
| they can sleep in the Lincoln bedroom, and that you will cancel
| out a few parking tickets.
| tjohns wrote:
| You're paying for provably guaranteed reliability.
|
| When you're paying billions per rocket launch, you simply can't
| afford to have your robot break down on day 1 because of a
| software bug or because a component was accidently installed
| upside down.
|
| (Also, "only gotta make it to the moon" makes it sound like
| that's a trivial task. There's a lot to unpack in that small
| sentence.)
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| You can if you send 10 cheap robots instead of one half-
| billion dollar one.
| choilive wrote:
| I think you underestimate the engineering complexity a bit of
| these rovers :)
| zackfield wrote:
| seems like we don't have any active or planned missions to land
| on the moon anymore. bummer. (happy to be proven wrong)
| https://www.nasa.gov/missions/?terms=10828%2C10873%2C10900%2...
| rvnx wrote:
| Artemis III will land on the moon (not before 2027 though).
|
| Maybe faster if someone has an old spare Gameboy to lend to
| them.
| dvdbloc wrote:
| When a project like this is cancelled, where does the hardware
| go? Not just flight hardware which I'm sure is ITAR EAR
| restricted but also the plethora of test and supporting hardware
| to go along with it?
| trhway wrote:
| I think with SpaceX we have the situation similar to computing -
| ie. whether to start a 20 year computation today on a $1B
| hardware or wait 5 years and complete it in 5 years then on a
| $100K hardware - to proceed to fund the $450M+ for the many years
| ahead or just wait a couple years until SpaceX gets to it and has
| it done for $10M in half a year.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40991699
|
| I'll note that it sounds like they were relying on a 3rd party to
| make their descent module, but it won't be ready in time. So if
| they were to go ahead with the launch they wouldn't have a way to
| land the thing.
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